0 Board Game Review - Magnifico

At first glance, you might look at Magnifico and think, 'oh, great, another Risk clone.' But that's like looking at RuPaul and thinking, 'wow, that chick has great legs.' Sure, there are some things in common, but the differences are a lot more important than the similarities. I'll let you decide for yourself if you think I'm talking about Risk or RuPaul.

Magnifico has players taking the helm of upstart nations attempting to subjugate Western Europe at the beginning of the 16th century. Only instead of just raising armies and shooting people with archaic weapons, you buy designs from Leonardo da Vinci and use his wacky, ahead-of-their-time inventions to grind everyone else under your fruity Renaissance comfortable footwear. Tanks, cannons, submarines, and airplanes are just a few of the nifty devices you'll use to run roughshod over everyone else.

I admit, that sounds like Risk: Old Europe. But it's not. That's just the jumping-off point, and there's so much more in Magnifico that if you sit down thinking you're playing a new twist on an old classic, you're bound to be disappointed. Magnifico is as much a game of managing limited resources, blind auctions and long-term strategy as it is a military simulation. If you want to simply enjoy a conquest game, I can recommend a bunch - but this one isn't it.

For one thing, you don't spend your money to just hire more troops. Every turn, you can recruit one soldier in any place where you already have at least one soldier - and that's it. I guess since the television isn't invented for a few hundred years, you can't blow all your cash on a Super Bowl ad to recruit for the National Guard, so instead you have to just grab whoever is passing by the office that day and give them a uniform and a really awkward firearm.

However, you will spend a lot of money. You need money to win the auction for first player, then you need money to buy the inventions and art from da Vinci, then you need money to build them. You also have to pay money every time you want to attack someone, and so if you blow your entire pile of cash on the Mona Lisa and plans for an armored sailboat, you'll sit there like a Quaker your whole turn. Maybe you can earn a little more money churning butter or something, because you're certainly not going to be doing any fighting.

The money part of da Vinci is a critical reason this is nothing like Risk - but there are other good reasons. Take combat - you can only start three fights in a turn, so you're not going to just plow through the opposition in a single turn. And that's good, because if you go in prepared, it's almost impossible to lose a fight as the offense. As in, the defenders will probably lose every single one of their guys, and you'll walk in unscathed. But then if you don't ramp up your defenses to an unreasonable degree, they'll just come sailing back in and kick you out again.

You can't play Magnifico defensively. There's no hiding in Australia while everyone else dukes it out. You can build castles to improve your defenses, but if you don't staff them properly, they'll just change hands when your opponent (who obviously has more balls than you do) kills all your guys and steals your castle.

While we're talking about stealing stuff, you have to be really careful with those magnificent inventions. When all your guys die, your tanks and planes don't. Instead they now belong to the bastard who just drove a 16th century Sherman right up your ass. They're his planes and tanks now, and he's going to use them to hit you again.

There are some wacky, seemingly unbalanced factors at work in Magnifico, and for the first half of your first game, you might think it feels like it was invented by a tenth-grader during study hall. You'll find yourself asking, 'Why do I lose a guy every time I set sail?' and 'Why can't I hire more soldiers?' and 'Do you like me? Check yes or no.' In order to really appreciate Magnifico, you have to come at it from a non-standard point of view.

And if you can manage to put aside everything you expect from Risk or Dust or Attack! or any of a huge array of other global conquest games, and just let Magnifico be what it is, instead of what you think it should be, you'll find that there is a really good game here. It's aggressive and fast, tricky and deep, and pretty darn easy on the eyes. You can win the game with a good attack strategy, but you can also win by making stuff. You can win by sponsoring art, and you can win by holding castles. This isn't a run-of-the-mill land grab.

In fact, Magnifico is a very fun game, and while I don't know that I would put it onto the 'never sell this game because I'll play it all the time' pile, it's certainly on top of the 'play this the next time I get a chance' pile. It's got an unexpected mix of European and American gaming. It kind of sneaks up on you, but it's an awful lot of fun once you get into it.

And that's not something I can say about RuPaul.

Summary

Pros:
Turns are fast - a big game that plays in less than 3 hours
Fun, funny art
Tons of depth
Plan ahead or lose badly

Cons:
Not at all what you expect
You may not get it right off... or at all

I really liked Magnifico, but it sure wasn't what I thought it was. If you can clear your mind of the Risk clone notion, you might be very pleasantly surprised. You can get it here:
http://www.gameoutfitter.com/product-p/asm%20mag01us.htm?gclid=CKedqsPAjJ4CFQEhDQodpxexpw

0 Board Game Review - Acquire

Reviewing old favorites is a little like driving a bulldozer through a field full of bunny rabbits and orphans - you're almost guaranteed to piss off someone. Acquire is an old standby favorite, reprinted by Avalon Hill several years ago, and stands to this day as one of the great Sid Sackson games ever made. Opinions on the game tend to vary from 'man, I love that game' to 'I think I'll pay $200 for one on eBay'. Reviewing a game this time-tested and sacred tends to summon the rabid fans who come out with pitchforks and tar if you make the slightest mistake, and because it has been played by so many gamers, you also get the people who want to prove how far off the beaten path they are by telling you that you're an idiot if you liked it.

For the sake of the metaphor, I'll call the Acquire fanatics 'bunnies', and the it's-cool-to-hate un-fans as 'orphans'. And I'll try to hit them both with my metaphorical bulldozer.

Acquire, for those readers who have only been playing games for the last twenty minutes, is a highly abstracted game of corporate takeovers and high finance (unless you get the version with hotels, in which case it's an abstract game of hotel takeovers and high finance). The growth of various corporations is represented by a numbered grid, and as you play, you place plastic tiles over those numbers. Place two of them next to each other, and you form a corporation. Place a tile so that it links two corporations, and the bigger one swallows up the smaller one.

The key to making money in Acquire is to buy, sell and trade stock in the existing corporations. When a corporation gets eaten up by another corporation, the players with the most stock in the now-defunct company get buyout bonuses, and anyone with that stock can dump it to get money or more stock in other companies. Placing tiles properly is important, but to really excel, you have to be able to manipulate stock prices and make smart investments.

There's quite a bit of strategy and long-term planning in Acquire, and you have to be able to recognize where you're likely to make money. It's fast-paced and cutthroat, with the constant temptation to get in over your head or get tied up in a no-winners bidding war. Many decisions you'll make as you play can get you so far behind that you'll be out of the game, yet very few of those decisions are so decisive that you'll shoot past the competition. It's tricky and really fun, and while it's easy to suck, it's hard to be brilliant at it.

And that's kind of the downside. A mediocre player can be shut out fairly easily by more skilled players, which is a mixed bag. On the one hand, I do prefer games where the better player wins, but on the other hand, new players could be completely disgusted when they go the whole game holding a huge pile of nearly worthless stock that tied up all their finances while the experienced players swim in money like Scrooge McDuck. I'm not opposed to games where people get knocked completely out, but it does kind of suck to be so far behind that you've got a snowball's chance in Hell of winning, but have to keep sitting there the whole time, anyway.

I'll be the first to admit that the reason I know about this particular 'flaw' is that it happened to me. I made a couple really short-sighted stock purchases and it cost me, big-time, because I was broke for the rest of the game. It's not hard to fall into that trap, though, especially if you haven't played Acquire a lot, and it really does diminish the enjoyment you can get out of a game when you know you can't win, but you have to stick around and see who gets to laugh at you when the game is over.

However, even if you are the guy who spends his first three turns ruining himself for the rest of the game, Acquire is still a lot of fun. It is a very fast, very fun game with lots of chances to bluff, plan, and make quick decisions. It's not hard to learn the rules, but it's got incredible depth, especially considering how simple it is to pick up. And talk about staying power - the first version of the game was released in 1962, and it still gets played today. That's the kind of longevity you see in Monopoly, except without having to roll dice all day long and grumble about having to be the shoe.

Acquire isn't a perfect game. The tendency for a weaker player to take himself completely out of the running could make a lot of gamers happy to avoid it. But it is an incredibly good game, it moves incredibly fast, and is a ton of fun, so if you've ever played and said, 'man, did I suck,' give it another shot. And then, if you still hate it, you can write me a note that says, 'I still suck.'

Summary

Pros:
Abstract theme that does a great job of representing big business
Brilliantly simple rules create amazing depth
Fun and fast

Cons:
Player elimination that means you can't win, but you still don't get to go see what's on TV

I have good news - Dogstar Games has Acquire. In case I don't drive this home often enough, they provide the review copies that let me tell you about stuff like Chaos in the Old World, Space Alert, and other games from publishers who won't return my emails any more. So if you want to pick up this really great classic game, go get it right here:
http://www.dogstargames.com/product/WOC221920000

0 Card Game Review - Dominion: Seaside

By the power vested in me by Blogger.com, I hereby declare the third week of every year to be Dominion week. During this holiday week, all federal employees shall be expected to show up to work, just like normal, and mail had better run or I'm going to be pissed. The holiday will be observed by me talking about Dominion all week, unless my pipes freeze over the weekend and instead I talk about how much it sucks to do your own plumbing.

To commemorate the final day of Dominion week, I declare that Dominion: Seaside is 100% kick-ass. Unlike either the original Dominion or Dominion: Intrigue, Seaside is not a stand-alone game, and yet if you observe Dominion week, you are morally obligated to rush right out and buy Seaside immediately, unless you already have it. If you do already own Seaside, and you intend to observe Dominion week, you must play a game of Dominion using the brilliant cards from Seaside.

As a duly-self-elected representative for gamers who like Dominion, it is my duty to inform the citizens of this relatively mediocre gaming blog that Seaside is the best set yet, even eclipsing the original Dominion in the sheer amount of awesome in the box. The newest kind of card is the duration card, which has an effect both on the turn it is played and on the next turn as well.

These duration cards alter the game in ways never before seen, by allowing players to plan ahead for turns to come before they even have cards in hand. In fact, the tactician allows you to completely forfeit your current turn in order to have an absolutely amazing turn next time. It is difficult to overstate the brilliance in the new layers of planning and strategy now available to the players of the great game of Dominion, but it should be sufficient to say that if you can't decide between Intrigue and Seaside, eat ramen noodles for a week and buy them both.

Seaside also includes other cards that allow you to plan for the future, beyond the general theme of stacking your deck to maximize your spending power. The native village allows you to set cards aside, so that you can use them on a future turn, when you might really need them. Combined with a scout (one of my favorite cards from Intrigue) and a throne room (the most powerful card that does nothing in the original set), the native village is an incredible resource that really allows the skilled player to have the cards he needs, right when he needs them.

Another great development in Seaside is that finally, a consistent theme is presented, better than ever before (not that there was a particularly high bar set in the first place). Now, using the treasure map, you can strike it incredibly rich, and fill your deck with gold - if you can just find the other half of the map. You can use the pirate ship to steal treasures from the other players and make yourself richer. You can set up at the wharf to take on extra cards for next turn, or stash your victory cards on a deserted island, and then come back to get them when the game is over. More than either of the previous Dominion releases, Seaside actually feels a little bit like what it's supposed to represent.

And to make Seaside even more better than Intrigue (and yes, I know 'more better' is grammatically hosed. It's just that I don't care), the art is far better. It seems the folks at Rio Grande heard the complaints of the gamers who thought the harem in Intrigue looked like it was drawn by the guy who does Calvin & Hobbes. The cards are pretty again, and some of them are gorgeous. Like I said with Intrigue, I would play this game to death if it had no art at all, but it's still nicer to look at pretty art instead of something that looks like it was created by Napoleon Dynamite if he was sleepwalking while having a nightmare.

But the best thing about Seaside is how perfectly it meshes with the first two releases. There are so many great combinations possible now - you can pirate-ship your opponents to devalue their gardens, or use the wharf and the salvager to make yours more potent. Use the lookout to combat the witch, or add the sea hag to the witch to drop scores into the negatives. Use explorers to get treasure that the adventurer can find. Use the embargo to stop a run on the duke, or lighthouse to supplement the moat. There's so much more to Dominion when you have all three sets that I can't see owning one and not the others, unless you don't like it and have been trying to trade it away. And if that's the case, then you totally suck at celebrating Dominion week.

Summary

Pros:
Duration cards add a whole new layer of strategy and planning
Great art
So many new ways to play - you could play your whole life and never see the same game twice
The coolest metal money I've ever seen in a board game

Cons:
Not a whole game - you'll need either Intrigue or the original Dominion (but you should get them all anyway)

Dogstar Games carries Seaside, which is super convenient because they have the other two. And since you wouldn't be reading about any Dominion games, or for that matter, a whole lot of other games, I think you should get the games from them. And since Dominion is such an awesome game, I think you should get them all.
http://dogstargames.com/store/1329089/product/RIO404

0 Card Game Review - Dominion: Intrigue

I've already said that Dominion was an awesome game, and since I reviewed it, it has only gotten better. My wife and daughter both like it, so I find myself able to play six or seven games a week. I think it's safe to say that Dominion is a game that I won't be trading away any time soon.

So if a little is good (and it is, most definitely, good), a lot must be better. That was my thinking when I picked up Dominion: Intrigue, and I'm delighted to announce that I was right. Double the cards, you double the fun. In fact, I would say that Intrigue makes Dominion more than twice as fun. In case you're not picking up the vibe here, I'm definitely recommending it.

Intrigue is a complete game in a box. Everything you need to play Dominion is here - treasures, victory cards, curses, and a whole bunch of action cards. So you don't need the original Dominion to enjoy Intrigue - it's a heaping spoonful of awesome right out of the shrink wrap.

In fact, there are more than enough cards here to play Intrigue all by itself for a real long time. Some of the new action cards are just plain fun, like the bridge that makes everything cheaper AND gives you extra buys, or the secret chamber that lets you rearrange your cards when someone plays an attack card. There are a bunch more, and I don't have the slightest inclination to describe them all, but suffice to say that there's more than enough to have tons of repeat play value.

And as if that weren't enough, a new kind of card makes an appearance - the combination victory card. My favorite, given my love of loose women, is the harem, which gives you both victory points and treasure, so that you're not stuck with a damned green card taking up space in your deck the whole game. There are more, too - the great hall that lets you dump it out of your hand and get a replacement, or the nobles that let you choose between more actions and more cards.

But like I said, this is even better with the original game. The secret chamber is a great defense against the thief, but it doesn't stop the torturer, so you'll want a moat. And a throne room with a saboteur is just plain nasty. There aren't enough cheap multiple-action cards to please me, so I really like to roll in some villages to help out with the masquerade. Both Dominion and Intrigue are amazing games alone, but combined, they're the cat's pajamas.

The only thing that puzzles me is why they hired their artists at a school for special-needs kids. Some of the art is embarrassingly bad. The shanty town looks like it was drawn by an animator from the Simpsons, and the scout looks like Stephen Hawking drew it with a crayon in his mouth. I almost don't want to introduce new gamers to Dominion using Intrigue because they're likely to laugh me out of the room.

So, OK, the art on many cards is complete ass. I don't care. It's not like I'm playing Dominion for the pretty pictures. They could take the art off every card, and it would still be one of my favorite games ever. Intrigue is every bit as awesome as the original Dominion, and together they make for an absolutely outstanding game.

If you like Dominion and don't own Intrigue, you should make it your next game purchase. It's an absolutely fantastic game that makes an already fantastic game more than twice as fantastic. And that's an awful lot of fantastic.

Summary

Pros:
All by itself, a great damned game
So many new combinations and strategies to master
Exponentially more replay value
Takes a really awesome game and makes it more than twice as awesome

Cons:
Art drawn by retarded kids with cerebral palsy

Dogstar Games carries Dominion: Intrigue. If you like the original, you owe it to yourself to run over there and pick it up:
http://dogstargames.com/store/1329089/product/RIO390

0 Activity Review - Home Repairs

There's an old country song with a lyric somewhere in there that goes, 'if it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all.' This song was running through my head all weekend (or at least, this line - I don't actually listen to country music, and have no idea how the rest of the song goes).

North Texas was recently slapped with what the news calls 'arctic conditions', and what the rest of the country calls 'time to put on a sweater.' For three days, the temperature was well below freezing, and we even had a little ice one morning. To say that North Texas is ill-prepared for cold weather is an understatement. We're ill-prepared for any temperature that requires a jacket. When there's ice on the overpasses, schools close down for the day and people burn down their houses for heat.

While we did not burn down our house, there were times when we were considering it. The first night that the temperature dove, our furnace quit working. We woke up to a house that was holding at a not-very-comfortable 45 degrees, and the house only got colder until the furnace guy finally came out (the next day) and fixed our heater. And while the furnace was failing to heat our home, the cold seeped right up into the pipes and froze everything solid. We did manage to keep running water in the bathroom, but every other pipe was blocked up. It took until Saturday to get the water running again, and that's when we found out how bad the damage really was.

As soon as the cold water started running again, we could hear the rumbling sound of a burst pipe. Since people in North Texas are effectively retarded when it comes to protecting our homes from deep freezes, we're fairly familiar with the sound, and we know what to do. The first step is to turn off the water to the house, which involves running out to the curb with a metal doodad and digging in frozen mud to find the shut-off valve, then cursing because you just dug in frozen mud and don't have any running water to wash your hands.

The broken pipe was underneath the kitchen sink, below the floorboards. There's not enough clearance underneath there for me to slide my fat ass up to it through the crawl space, so the only solution was to cut through the flooring under the sink. This was accomplished with a Dremel rotary tool using cutting bits so dull that it took nearly an hour and a half to cut a hole large enough to fit one arm. Then, once I could see the pipe below, I had to ask my son to turn on the water while I watched the pipe, so I could spot the leak. Predictably enough, this resulted in me being shot in the face with a jet of icy water - but I was able to spot the leak.

Then I had to go to the hardware store. This part is my least favorite, because I have to wander around the plumbing section trying to look even a little bit like my job does not involve sitting at a desk and making catalogs on a computer. When asking for help, I try to use technical phrases like, 'half-inch copper pipe' and 'elbow joint' and 'you know, that metal thingy that patches the gap.' I always end up spending more than I need to spend because I don't want to come back, and I always end up coming back because I always buy the wrong thing. In this case, however, I did buy the right thing but still had to go back. If you're ever trying to fix copper pipes, I can't recommend the Sharkbite push-fit fittings highly enough. Rather than having to mess with pressure fittings and wrenches (neither of which was going to be manageable when I could only reach the broken pipe with one hand), I simply cut the pipe using my little red pipe cutter and slapped the Sharkbite over both ends.

And that's when we found the second leak, which was right underneath the kitchen floor. Since there was still not enough clearance to get there through the crawl space, I was left with two options. I could call a plumber, or I could use my circular saw to cut a two-foot square hole directly into the floor of the house. Obviously, the sensible thing to do would be to call a professional, and not carve up the hardwoods in the kitchen.

The circular saw did a fine job, though I did wind up with a lot of sawdust underneath the refrigerator. Once I removed the floorboards and the subfloor, I could see the broken pipe quite clearly. A second trip to the hardware store and a second Sharkbite fitting, and that leak was patched as well.

And that's when we found the third leak. The pipe had broken inside the wall, behind the load-bearing beam that kept the back of the house from sliding into the yard. Cutting out the beam was not an option, unless I decided it was time to file a claim on my homeowner's insurance and spend a few weeks in a hotel. My options were to either destroy my house to fix a pipe, or give up and call a plumber.

I went with option three. Yet another trip to the hardware store (by now the employees were calling me by name) got me ten feet of copper pipe and a Sharkbite fitting that made a sharp corner. I replaced every damned inch of pipe between the cold water feed and the faucet, and now water in my house runs just fine.

Now the only thing left is to put my house back together. Enough plumbing, now I have to do carpentry.

Summary

Pros:
Buying a house lets you find out how much stuff you never knew you could do
Great sense of accomplishment when you avoid having to pay a plumber

Cons:
Entire weekend shot to hell
Bruises, scrapes, cuts and muscle soreness
Spending three days covered in grime because you don't have running water

0 Board Game Review - Dracula

Good two-player games are hard to find. There are lots of games that say they're for 2-4 players, but what they mean is that you should find four players, because the two-player version blows goats. And then there are two-player games that are decent two-player games, but you have to each build an army that will cost you a couple mortgage payments from collectible pieces that you'll use six times and then store in a box for the next ten years until you find them in the attic one day and try to sell them, only to find out that since the game is dead, the entire collection is worth less than the eBay fees.

But my wife likes to play games with me, and she likes to try new stuff, so I'm constantly on the lookout for a decent game we can play while the kids tie up the television with Mythbusters and Miley Cyrus videos. I got Dracula, and was thinking that it might be just the thing that my wife and I could enjoy for a quick game before she went to bed and I ended up playing Dragon Age until I fell asleep in the living room.

Sadly, Dracula is not a good two-player game, so that didn't work out at all.

In Dracula, each player is trying to find the five things that the other player is trying to keep from them. There's a grid of twelve houses, and each player puts six of their supply cards out, and you shuffle them together and hide them face down. Then Van Helsing and Dracula take turns walking around and looking at the cards. If the card is a woman, Dracula can eat her. If it's a coffin, Van Helsing can break it. When one of them gets five of the things they want, that guy wins.

To make things a little more interesting, Van Helsing and Dracula have both called in some backup. Van Helsing has nerdy guys with stakes who will try to spike the bloodsucking bastard, and Dracula has hot vamp chicks who will try to get Van Helsing's pants off before he can chop off their heads (this is why Dracula will always be cooler than Van Helsing - one is an ugly old guy wtih a chip on his shoulder, and the other scores an undending supply of freaky tail).

There are also barriers that the two foes move around the tiny little village (which is apparently the village of the damned, because out of twelve spaces, something like half of them could contain either fanged hotties or empty coffins, and half of the rest probably have half-naked dames waiting to get ravished by Transylvania's answer to Rico Suave). These barriers are virtually worthless, unfortunately, but they can slow down your opponent a little, so there's a marginal amount of strategy in where you place them.

Both players use action cards to move around, and these action cards might have special abilities, which is the only reason why the two players have even vaguely dissimilar powers. In terms of game balance, this works out, but if you're trying to get to the theme, don't bother. In fact, if Van Helsing and Dracula show up at the same house, there's no fight. They just show each other their leftover supply cards like lawyers at a discovery hearing. Yeah, these guys hate each other enough to want to kill each other, but if they could just sit down in arbitration, maybe they could work out their differences without having to go to court.

What ends up happening is that the entire game sort of devolves into a two-player game of Memory. Every turn you want to see cards that aren't yours - after all, there's not much point in Dracula visiting his imported undead booty call, except for some possible undead lovin'. And why Van Helsing would want to spend some quality time with his dorky assistants is beyond me - even if he were gay, those guys don't want to get busy with any old dude with that much unruly face hair. So you both sort of trip around this tiny village, visiting houses and looking for the cards you need to make the game end, thus allowing you to put it away and just go to bed already.

I can't honestly say that there's no game here. There is a kind of cat-and-mouse thing working, only you're both cats and mice at the same time. If you like games where you have to remember lots of stuff, you might like Dracula. I don't like to play games that rely on my ability to remember twelve different cards at a time, so Dracula isn't my bag. Plus so much of the game just seems almost predestined - you'll move as far as you can afford, check inside a house, and repeat until someone makes it stop.

I'm glad I didn't pay for Dracula, and I'm really glad my wife likes Dominion as much as she does. Because this way I don't feel the least bit of seller's remorse when I get rid of Dracula, and we still have an awesome game to play in the evenings when we don't feel like watching whatever latest TV show has us roped in.

Summary

Pros:
Fairly nice pieces and a cool wooden Dracula
Slightly interesting twist on Memory

Cons:
Not enough decisions to be interesting
I don't like Memory
Dracula looks like a gay singer in an 80's hair band

Probably there's somebody who likes Dracula. I don't, but someone probably does, and it's not so bad that I feel a need to link you to a picture of vomit or something. But then, it's dumb enough that I can't recommend you buy a copy, so I'm not going to link you to a store where you can waste your money, either. Instead, here's a cool picture of Dracula:
http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Everyone%20Else/images-4/bela-lugosi-dracula.jpg

0 Card Game Review - Chrononauts

If you could go back in time, would you stop Lincoln's assassination? Would you save the Hindenberg? Or would you just go back and tell Dustin Hoffman not to make Ishtar?

In Chrononauts, each player is a time explorer separated from his timeline. You might be from a timeline where we signed a Vietnam Peace Accord and legalized weed, or where Wilson kept the United States out of World War II and Martin Luther King became president. So one of your goals is to get back home, by manipulating events to bring about the history you remember.

Of course, just fixing time would be too easy (that's not exactly an 'of course' situation - I would think it might be difficult to fix time, but I guess it's not that bad. It worked in Time Cop). So while you're traipsing around, throwing time all out of whack and bringing about the apocalypse, you're also supposed to collect artifacts, like the Ark of the Covenant or the Mona Lisa. Get the three artifacts you're supposed to get, and you don't have to worry about getting home any more. I guess you don't mind being stuck in an age where John Lennon makes a Beatles reunion album if you have the creation of the universe on Betamax.

The timeline cards are all laid out in order, with symbols that indicate what events become paradoxes if specific lynchpin events are altered. Like if Hitler is killed in 1936, then Germany never invades Poland, D-Day never happens, and Isreal is never founded. But then your parents never met, because you grandfather was an American G.I. and your grandmother worked in a Paris brothel, and just like that, you've got a paradox.

To fix these paradoxes, you have to patch them with other events that also never happened. For instance, if Al Gore wins the recount in 2000, then Obama never gets elected, creating a paradox that can be fixed by rigging it so Sarah Palin becomes the first woman president. And if you get hit by a car in your mom's driveway, you have to arrange for your dad to beat up Biff at the school dance. You also have to play Chuck Berry.

As the game progresses, more and more paradoxes will be generated, which is sort of good because you can patch them to create your own alternate future, and sort of bad because they could unravel the fabric of the universe. So there's a bit of a downside. Also, if you screw up enough stuff, you set off nuclear war and blow up the world. Also a downside, unless you're actually trying to get back to a timeline where the world died in 1962, probably so you can hook back up with Cable and Bishop.

This is the best Looney Labs game I've played so far, which is kind of ironic, because it's also the least attractive. The art may be weak, but the game is brilliant. It ends in about 20-30 minutes, and it's so fun that you'll want to shuffle up and play again. There are so many different things going on all the time, with opponents grabbing dinosaurs and you helping to set up David Koresh's outreach ministry to the poor and time fracturing into a thousand pieces. You'll want to keep track of which opponents are grabbing up all the artifacts, and while you want to patch the timeline to get extra cards (and prevent the disentigration of the universe), you also don't want to get guns banned in the United States and send your hippie opponent back home.

If you're a sucker for pretty games (like most of us), Chrononauts isn't going to be your new favorite, because it's just not very attractive at all. But if you like a smart, fast, amusing game, you'll probably get a kick out of Chrononauts. It has several expansions, too - while the main game starts around 1900, you can get another set where you can make the South win the Civil War, and another set called The Gore Years where you can stop the World Trade Center attack or capture Osama Bin Ladin (though not in the same timeline).

Chrononauts surprised the heck out of me. I mean, I've figured out by now that Looney Labs makes some pretty fun games, but Chrononauts is a much more serious game than anything else I've seen from them. It might even be possible that in an alternate past, Andrew Looney turned down his first joint and decided to make some serious games, and then just made the one before the paradox was fixed at a college free-love party where he got a mad contact high. Whatever the case, we now have Chrononauts AND Stoner Fluxx, so I'm pretty sure the drugs came in somewhere.

Summary

Pros:
Deep and involved
Plays fast
For the first time in a Looney Labs game, you can plan several turns ahead
Different ways to win, but none of them are easy

Cons:
Really weak art

I think Chrononauts is a hoot. If you want to try it, you can preorder the reprint right here:
http://store.looneylabs.com/Chrononauts